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How PunchOut Works

PunchOut lets a buyer shop a supplier's own online catalogue from inside a purchase document and bring the basket back as lines on that document, carrying the supplier's part numbers and contract prices. You are the buyer here: nothing in PunchOut hosts a catalogue for anybody else.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → ERP - Setup:

  • PunchOut — the PunchOut console: suppliers, item map, sessions and orders

Architect Panel → ERP - Setup:

  • PunchOut Suppliers — the same console for architects

Architect Panel → ERP - Procurement:

  • PunchOut Orders — the console's Orders tab: purchase orders queued back to suppliers; the badge counts orders that failed to send
  • Purchase Requisitions — open a requisition's record screen to find its PunchOut pane

The problem it solves

Supplier catalogues are large, change constantly and are priced under contract. Importing one means keeping a copy that is out of date the day after it lands. With PunchOut you keep no catalogue: the buyer shops the supplier's live site, which already knows your prices, and only the chosen items come back.

What a buyer does

  1. Open a requisition (or the purchase document type the supplier is set up for) on its record screen and find the PunchOut pane: "Shop a supplier's own catalogue and bring the basket back as lines on this document."
  2. Choose the supplier. Their catalogue opens, already signed in and showing your prices.
  3. Fill a basket in the supplier's site and check out. Checking out does not place an order there; it hands the basket back.
  4. The review page lists each line with its line total, the basket total, your item's name under its code, and how far a price differs from yours ("differs from your GBP 6.00 (+10.0%)"). Lines outside the supplier's price tolerance are flagged.
  5. Press Review and apply, then Apply to add the lines to the document. The requisition then follows its normal approval.

A buyer can also start at the catalogue: for a supplier that serves one company, punching out onto a new requisition creates it from the basket, in that company, for that supplier and in its currency (Create the purchase requisition from these lines).

What comes back on a line

The supplier's part number, description, quantity, unit price, currency, unit of measure and classification. A line is matched to your own item through the Item map, so the purchase reaches stock and reporting normally; map a part once and later baskets recognise it. Each line takes the item's purchase tax code, or the supplier record's tax code, so the requisition and its order carry VAT.

Checks on the basket

  • Prices are compared, not corrected: the basket's price is the contract price, compared with what your purchase price lists say. A difference beyond the tolerance is flagged for the buyer to decide.
  • Price units are handled: a supplier quoting per hundred is divided down to a unit price, so an order is never a hundred times wrong.
  • Another currency is refused, not converted.
  • Only the buyer can apply a basket: the return from the supplier only stages lines; a person reviews and applies them under their own login.

Two dialects

cXML (Ariba, Coupa, Jaggaer, Basware, Proactis) and SAP OCI 4.0/5.0. The supplier's integration guide says which. Only cXML suppliers can be sent purchase orders back electronically; OCI has no order message.

Not built

Searching a supplier's catalogue from inside ActiveManage, supplier-initiated confirmations or ship notices, and re-opening a basket already on a document to edit it are not available. PunchOut has also not yet been run against a live supplier network; prove each supplier with Test setup and a simulated basket first (see Configuring a PunchOut Supplier).

Worked example

An engineer opens a requisition for consumables and punches out to the stationery supplier. They add nine items and check out; the review page shows nine lines with part numbers and contract prices, one flagged at 12% above the price list. They apply them, note the flagged line for their manager, and submit. The manager approves, the buyer converts it to an order and issues it, and the order is queued back to the supplier.

Recommendations

  • Tell buyers that checkout returns a basket; they expect it to place the order.
  • Build the item map as parts recur.
  • Keep purchase price lists current so price checks mean something.
  • Start with one supplier and prove the round trip.